Chemistry
by Lord-Cthulu-Speaks
Summary: Chemistry (noun) 1.) A science that deals with the composition and properties of substances and various elementary forms of matter 2.) The interaction of one personality with another


Ok, so this much should be obvious, but I don't own Invader Zim or anything affiliated with it. I do own Nik and surly-o's, but you the have them if you want them

Just a heads up, some spelling/random wording might be a bit off, I am currently I the middle of a battle of the ages with my iPod's autocorrect feature.

And now, without further ado, I present to you; Chemistry (Or Lack Thereof)

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**Chemistry (Or Lack Thereof)**

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She thought her heart would stop when the lab partners for the next week were called. Most people would have groaned or complained, being paired with him. Fortunately for her, she wasn't most people.

_Station 3A: Gretchen, Dib_

She had sat stock still for a full minute, trying to calm herself, lest her excitement betray her. She had counted herself lucky in the first place, being in a class with him that didn't include the weird green kid. She hoped that somewhere up in the Hi-skool's hierarchy, someone had grown half a brain and had realized that Zim + Dib + closed environment + access to explosive chemicals = a very bad idea. The skool had lost a few science wings in the past few years because of it.

Either way, the weird little green kid was nowhere to be seen, and that made Gretchen happy. She'd always thought that Dib was more attractive when he wasn't agitated, at any rate.

_Not,_ she thought, blushing, _that he could ever be UNattractive_

It was with this mindset that she took her seat on that following Monday, cheeks slightly flushed, heart pounding just a little bit harder than usual. It wasn't every day that she sat close enough to be able to feel body heat.

Okay, maybe they weren't sitting _that_ close, but she could at least pretend.

He paid no mind to her approach, but that didn't serve to dishearten her at all. He'd never noticed her in Grayd or Middel Skool, either. No, she didn't mind, because he would notice her.

She had a week to make sure of that.

It had only been that morning that she had stood before her mirror (as she often did) repeating words to herself, over and over, trying to convince herself hat she might, she could, she would. It's not like she had any competition for his affections (not since that Tak girl left, anyhow), her only true obstacle was his self-imposed barrier to the outside world. She figured that if she could break past that, she'd be golden.

But anyone who has ever tried anything in the history of anything (especially romantic pursuits) knows that things in theory usually (if not always) work out much differently in reality.

Every attempt at conversation fell solidly on its face. Every sidelong glance revealed the boy's unwavering attention to the world outside the windows to their left. He was so despondent that she seriously doubted that he would notice if she were to strip naked and crawl into his lap.

Needless to say, she left that first day of chemistry class feeling sufficiently disheartened.

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Gretchen, by nature, was not one to give up easily. _It was only day one,_ she reasoned with herself, trying to look into her own eyes in the mirror with some form of conviction. _Day one of five. You've got time._

At first, the rest of the day had moved at a sluggish pace for her, heart set on the idea that she had failed. She had moped her way through the rest of her classes, trudged into the bus, sulked into her house, dragged herself up the stairs, and flopped into the shower. She stood there for a good ten minutes, just allowing the warm liquid to run down her skin and soothe away her thoughts. She hadn't needed to get clean, necessarily, she had just wanted to stop thinking.

She had stepped out into the fog bank formerly known as her bathroom after that twenty minute shower with renewed conviction. Mind freshly cleared of negative thoughts, she wiped the condensation from her mirror and bore down on herself.

She still had four days. She just needed to step up her game, was all.

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Day two began at the ungodly hour of 4:30 AM. A dozen or so metube makeup video tutorials (and four tries) later, and she had managed to make herself look presentable, rather than like a circus clown. Her bed lay strewn with every article of clothing in her closet, her floor was a rough terrain of shoes. A sexy song meweled out by some emaciated pop singer played in the background to get Gretchen in he mood as she adjusted her hair into he seventh style that she had tried that morning. 6:00 AM. She was making good time.

Her only roadblock had come the night before, when she had been planning her wardrobe, and had come to the realization that she had NO IDEA what Dib liked. She'd tried to bring to mind an occasion in which she'd seen him ogling anyone, only to come up blank. In fact, she'd never seen him pay any mind to anyone except for Zim or that scary-ass little sister of his. The rest of the world seemed to not exist to him.

She'd eventually settled on going with an educated guess, but that hadn't stopped her from changing her mind several times.

7:00 AM found Gretchen before her mirror, giving herself a final inspection before heading out. Dark acid wash skinny jeans tucked themselves into black ankle-high leather boots and lay snugly beneath a tight black tee shirt. Two silver chains hung limply against her barely-there chest, a third wrapped multiple times around her left wrist. Grey-rimmed eyes peered out from behind thickly mascara-ed eyelashes, while lightly purple-tinted lips contained the still-present braces beneath. Each earlobe supported two tiny black hoops, an imitation of Dib's own signature piercing style, and a small cuff shaped like a snake was perched halfway up the side of her right ear. Purple locks were pulled tightly back into a high ponytail, save for a few accidentially-on-purpose stray bangs about her face. A few spritzes of vanilla-scented perfume, and she was descending the stairs into the living room.

On her way to the back door, Gretchen encountered the groggy shape of her older sister, Nik, eating her breakfast at the kitchen table. She glanced up from the help wanted ads in the newspaper, one studded eyebrow quirking at her dolled-up sibling.

"Hot date?" She inquired through a mouthful of soggy Surly-o's.

"I guess you could say that." Gretchen replied, winking at her sister with a giggle.

She felt like nothing could stop her now.

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Around four o' clock, Nik was startled from her deep couch-slumber by the loudest door slam that she'd ever heard in her life. Shooting up to face the intruder, she was instead met with he sight of a crumpled mass of little skate at the base of the offending door.

"Rough day?"

Gretchen didn't bother to lift her head from her knees.

"Love sucks, Nik. Don't let anyone tell you different."

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Day five came with little fanfare. Really, it arrived with no more than a pathetic whimper. Gretchen awoke that morning with a newfound sense of urgency.

Today was her last chance. It was now or never.

She marched into second period Chemistry class with an obstinate sense of calm. Come Hell or high water, dammit, he was going to notice her! It didn't matter that he didn't so much as bat an eyelash as she slammed her books down on her half of the black-topped table and slid in next to him. It didn't matter if his right eye was swollen nearly shut and covered in a sick purple brui- hey wait. How long had that been there?

"What happened to your eye?" Gretchen gaped, voice free of he venom that just a second ago had been raging within her. The cynical part of her made a snide comment when Dib didn't seem to register her question- or presence-at all. That part of her was bound, gagged, and quickly deposited Ito the nearest metal broom closet as her more sympathetic side won out. Before she was aware of it, her hand had moved itself to being mere millimeters from the angry purple surface. Those amber colored eyes flicked slightly in hr direction, assessing her now quickly retreating hand before returning to the view outside the window, a drizzling rain.

"Zim." Came his monosyllabic answer. It wasn't much. In fact, it was almost nothing, but it still made her heart freeze itself for an instant, before melting into a rush of warmth. He had spoken to her, actually noticed _something_ outside of his own head, even if it had only been instincts driving him to protect his injuries. She knew that she should feel childish and downright pathetic for feeling as she did, but after four days of a stone wall, this was fucking _fantastic_.

She barely heard the tardy bell ring, couldn't focus at all when he teacher began heir lesson. Dib had actually _noticed_ something, and that something hadn't been screaming about his being a perfectly normal human worm-baby or threatening to send him to a nightmare world from which there was no awakening. She wasn't even aware that the rest of the class was starting their weekly experiment until a pair of pale fingers were snapping themselves in front of her face.

"Earth to Gretchen. Come in Gretchen."

Se blinked once, twice, mind freezing just from hearing that voice say her name. She was absolutely over the moon that he even _knew_ her name in the first place. It took a second and a few mediated breaths before she could unroot her eyes front the wall and turn them back in his direction. True, he had started the experiment without her and those eyes were focused elsewhere, but with her heart (and other assorted internal organs) hammering away in her chest, she was okay with that for now. He had _noticed_. He _knew her name_. Deep within her brain, Mr. Cynical struggled against his restraints, but otherwise remained safely locked in the brain-broom closet.

"Soo...", Gretchen began, watching him as fastened a water-filled test tube to a ring stand over a beaker filled with icy saltwater. She had absolutely no idea what hey were doing at the moment, but he seemed capable himself, so she didn't try to interfere. The computer to his left sprang to life as he began to input data into a program. Once he came to a blank white graph screen, he reached for a small cord attached to a metal rod and plugged it into a box that was connected to the computer before placing the rod into the test tube.

"There", he mumbled under his breath. "That should do it."

Gretchen's ears perked upon hearing him speak. "Anything I can do?"

"Umm, yeah, actually", he said cautiously, eyes flicking toward her for an instant before returning to the computer screen. He clicked a button and lowered the test tube into the beaker, grabbing a glass stirring rod and placing it into the beaker.

"Take the top of the temperature probe", he said, gesturing to the metal rod in the tube, "and stir the water."

Eagerly, Gretchen's hand shot out and she began doing as told, gently swishing the water around in the test tube with the probe. Dib took hold of the glass stirring rod and continually agitated the saltwater in the beaker beneath it. They went on like that for minutes, both stirring in complete silence. Every so often, Gretchen's eyes would dart over to him, and every time, his would be firmly planted on the contents of the test tube. So firmly planted, in fact, that she was suddenly slapped in the face with a _very_ naughty idea. Fuck it all, she was going to make him notice her.

Her hand stopped its gentle swishing motion, remaining motionless just long enough for her to see his eyes silently register the lack of movement. Feeling warmth surge throughout her face, she began to move the probe in an up-and-down motion. Her initial movements were small and jerky (was she seriously doing this?), but the momentum increased with her confidence. She tried to make the implication as obvious as she possibly could, glancing up at him every so often to gauge his reaction. The deadpan that he wore never once changed.

Deep within her mind, Mr. Cynical continued to thrash against the door of the closet. The ropes securing his hands slipped just the slightest bit.

She ignored the minute deflation in her chest as he once again turned his attention to the computer screen. She barely caught his words as she was instructed to stop stirring the test tube, and instead take his place stirring the saltwater; she could feel where his warm fingers had been on the glass rod.

Time grated by, time that might have been spent to better her situation with Dib rather wasted in empty silence. A millennium passed before she was told that she could stop stirring. Ten minutes left in the period, and Mr. Cynical had completely slipped free from his bonds, now shutting incoherently from behind the brain-oak door. She barely heard Dib when he told her to take care of the saltwater while he finished off the graph. Taking the stirring rod out of the solution, she studied a drop of liquid hanging from its tip. Feeling Dib's eyes occasionally flicking to her, another wave of desperate inspiration struck.

Before she was completely aware of what she was doing, her tongue dared out an captured hat drop of liquid before it fell to the tabletop.

She focused her eyes up to his, not caring that they were focused elsewhere. "Mmm", she purred, in what she hoped was a sexy voice. "It's salty."

A beat, before Dib sighed. "Yeah, crazy as it sounds, saltwater has been known to contain salt."

His eyes never left the screen once.

Five minutes left, and Gretchen was almost in a full-blown panic. She'd blown it. She'd had five whole days and she'd blown it.

She watched, unintelligible thoughts tearing through her head, as Dib washed out the test tube, laying it on the counter before taking the ring stand to put it away. Figuring that she might as well make herself useful, she reached for the freshly cleaned test tube, fingers reaching to scoop it up...

...and brushed against his as he reached for it at the exact same time. Both sets of fingers curled around the glass, lifting it from the table before either knew what was happening. A surge of electricity shot up Gretchen's arm, causing her fingers to twitch and tighten...

...and shatter the glass tube. She heard, rather than saw it break, the tiny glass fragments somehow miraculously leaving her own skin relatively unscathed, but instantly slicing into Dib's. She heard him yelp-more out of surprise than pain-and saw the red immediately spring forth from his digits.

Two minutes left, and she had managed to screw herself even worse by injuring him on top of everything else. Gretchen's mind was no longer operating even relatively normally. She saw that bright red, saw Dib in pain (although it was more like mild discomfort, given what he was used to), felt her time running so short,

Without thought, she gently but firmly took hold of his wrist...and popped his fingers into her mouth.

It was in the seconds following this that time slowed down to a crawl and Gretchen actually grasped what in the hell it was that she was doing. She was aware of those eyes, widened, shocked, and (finally) looking at _her_. She was aware that Dib's face was turning a shade of red that should not be humanly possible, that mouth opened just the slightest bit in complete surprise. She was painfully aware of the twenty-three other sets of eyes that were trained on her as well, could feel that unwelcome warmth on her back and shoulders. She was aware that behind the door of brain-oak, Mr. Cynical had fallen into a stunned silence. Nothing in the universe dared to move or breathe for a full thirty seconds as she sat with his bleeding fingers tucked firmly inside of her mouth.

You could have heard a pin drop from thirty miles.

Dib blinked once, twice, vicious red spreading past his cheeks, down his neck, amber eyes so wide that they felt as if they could just drop out of their sockets at will. The entire room was speechless.

"U-uh *achem* Gretchen?" he whispered, pulling back slightly on his hand. "T-that's okay. I can get a band-aid."

Numbly, she released his hand, watching as he retreated to the far corner of the room. For once, the class's attention was focused on an act of pure lunacy that hasn't been committed by Dib. She hoped that any minute, the massive amount of blood rushing to her face might gush of from her nose and eyes and kill her.

Twenty-three sets of eyes watched as Gretchen turned and not-so-gently rammed her face repeatedly into the table, coming up after the first couple of impacts with a piece of test tube lodged into her forehead.

Deep within her mind, Mr. Cynical found the key to the brain-oak door, unlocking it now and swinging it wide. He strolled once more into Gretchen's mind, free to do as he pleased. Spinning his cane and adjusting his monocle, he glanced up at the ceiling of his brain-world, feeling he need to address his god known as "Gretchen."

"Love sucks, Gretch", he chided, smiling in that infuriating way, taking a puff from his pipe. " Don't let anyone tell you different."

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**Notes**:

I was so excited tab out having his up in time for Valentine's day before I got lazy and stopped writing...

But this is still he first ff that I've pumped out in a while, so hey, it's something at least, right?

This entire ff was inspired by an actual experiment preformed by me in my Chemistry class, when I actually was supposed to stir the water by moving the probe up and down (making me the butt of my lab partner's jokes) and I had the image of Gretchen. doing the same, but on purpose, and Dib being completely oblivious.

The sad part is, this is essentially the story of my life when it comes to guys (I'm not this forward with them, but still) with the dressing just because he might see and the serious contemplation of hitting him over the head with a brick because he doesn't seem to want to notice me otherwise. *sigh* the joys of high school

I also own the snake cuff that Gretchen wears on day 2, in case anyone cared...

Loved it? Hated it? I don't know unless you leave me a review, dearies!


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